Life Skills
Intent
Life Skills lessons and days provide pupils with an opportunity to discuss their views, share their opinions and help embed the skills, knowledge and understanding Wigmore High School believes students require to be successful in modern day communities in the UK and internationally.
Following responses from student voice questionnaires, meetings, governmental publications and new RSE documentation, our curriculum has been developed to ensure students are learning about up to date and relevant world issues and that they are taught the relevant subjects to help them transition into young well-rounded adults.
We aim to provide engaging and informative opportunities for our pupils at Key Stage 3 and invite external speakers to assist us with this. We work with agencies from the local community to ensure that they have the opportunity for experiential learning.
At Key Stage 4 we use a mixture of themed, collapsed curriculum Life Skills days as well as lessons embedded within the curriculum. Themes include families and relationships; safety along with wellbeing and mental health. We also provide specific event days such as ‘Dying2Drive’ which is delivered by a local organisation. In addition to the above, our Life Skills curriculum is integrated into our tutor time programme which is delivered by form tutors during morning registration. As part of Life Skills and tutor time, pupils also discuss the fundamental British values, as well as our Wigmore values.
Implementation
Pupils have two lessons a fortnight in Year 7, 8 and 9. Our Key Stage 4 pupils have a mixture of Life Skills Days and lessons embedded into their curriculum on a termly or half-termly basis. Year 9 lessons also include lessons based around ‘Work related learning’ and work linked to careers.
There are recurring themes throughout our long-term plans to ensure topics are sufficiently covered at appropriate levels and that we provide an all-through and broad and balanced education. We also ensure that links are made with local services such as our School Nursing team and West Mercia Police. We constantly review our curriculum and adapt our lessons to help our students discover, understand and make sense of local, national and international issues.
A more detailed breakdown of subject content at both Key Stages can be found by looking at our long-term plans.